I caught up to Count Rupert and Cormoran in Crows Nest AC to find out how Count Rupert had killed 909k plus NPCs during October to win first place in League C 10 or more cities, and how Cormoran had killed 340k plus NPCs to win first place in League A 1-4 cities in the Crow Hunting Tournament. Here are the highlights of the interview.

[1 Nov 00:48]<jolly roger kafka> oh! Rupert and Cor, we should write up something to post in the forum that answers questions such as how do you kill over 900k npcs in a month, and how does a player with 4 towns kill over 300k npcs in a month

[01 Nov 00:50]<Cormoran> foreign offices and elite t2 cav divisions

[01 Nov 00:50]<Cormoran> and i went after legions right from the start

[01 Nov 00:59]<Cormoran> it takes about 2 days for a decent offensive commander to resurrect, enough time to retrain the army

[01 Nov 00:59]<Cormoran> and sometimes 8k kills is better than you'll get in that time otherwise

[01 Nov 00:59]<Count Rupert> Losses though drive how frequently you can battle.

[01 Nov 01:00]<Cormoran> losses and actually having enemies

[01 Nov 01:00]<Count Rupert> I produced more troops during the period of the tournament than I lost.

[01 Nov 01:00]<Cormoran> i didn't have to use sov at xanadu the entire time

[01 Nov 01:00]<Cormoran> then again, i was getting some help in keeping the area clear

[01 Nov 01:01]<Count Rupert> So most of my cities have more troops in them now than at the start of the torunament

[1 Nov 01:01]<jolly roger kafka> did you also use troop sov Rupert?

[01 Nov 01:02]<Count Rupert> I have some, no maxed though.

[01 Nov 01:02]<Count Rupert> Mostly running at 50%

[01 Nov 01:02]<Cormoran> i used sov 1 for about 70% at two of my cities

[1 Nov 01:03]<jolly roger kafka> i see

[01 Nov 01:03]<Cormoran> no sov for the one near count rupert

[01 Nov 01:03]<Cormoran>

[1 Nov 01:03]<jolly roger kafka> haha!

[01 Nov 01:03]<Count Rupert> lol

[01 Nov 01:03]<Cormoran> and sov 3 for the city on the border of keshalia and mal motsha, which still wasn't enough to kill all the rat legions around me

[01 Nov 01:04]<Cormoran> crippling upkeep though, -4k/hr on resources

[1 Nov 01:05]<jolly roger kafka> the troops you used, mostly advanced cavalry? is that right? any other types of troops?

[01 Nov 01:05]<Cormoran> i used a few archers at the start, way too slow and always lost a bunch of them

[01 Nov 01:06]<Count Rupert> I used a combination of t1/t2 cav for the most part. Did use archers a few times.

[1 Nov 01:06]<jolly roger kafka> okay

[01 Nov 01:07]<Cormoran> all t2 cav here, there's less of a speed differential between t1 and t2 for elves

[1 Nov 01:07]<jolly roger kafka> what sort of questions if you can think of any would you wish someone to ask?

[01 Nov 01:08]<Cormoran> hmm

[01 Nov 01:08]<Cormoran> i'm gonna go with... 42?

Unfortunately, I lost the igm that had the rest of the stuff about the question, "42?" but i think Cor would like it left ambiguous.

Also, in another igm, Count Rupert summed up the interview, which I'll post below.

That covers it pretty well. Obviously the two keys are the foreign offices and use of elite divisions. Foreign offices provide a rudimentary form of scouting. They don't need to be in every city, just a handful to cover the largest area your cities are in. With the recent changes increasing the effects to a 30% increase in diplomatic visibility per level of the foreign office, they can provide NPC details over a very long range limiting the amount of actual scouting you need to do. Knowing what the NPC sizes mean in terms of actual numbers is important as well. There's quite a difference in hitting a NPC group of many over hitting a host. Elite divisions allow one to hit harder and take fewer losses. As much as possible, hunting parties should be 5 commander led elite divisions. Commanders should be equipped with hunting gear. This is because commanders with heroism maxed out will provide an astonishing amount of attacking power, as much or more than the elite division itself in some cases. So you want commanders to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible since they're the least likely of your units to die as they suffer loss of hit points unlike your other units. Regardless of what units you use to hunt with, keeping losses as low as possible is important. Won't matter how successful your battles are if your army spends a lot of its free time waiting for its losses to be replaced. We all only have so much time we can devote to Illy. Meaning, you want to use the time you have as efficiently as possible. Being able to send out returning armies as soon as they arrive home can get you those extra attacks in that make a different in a tournament. Knowing what your army can handle helps in target selection. I know on plains, my 5 cav commander led elite divisions can take out virtually any NPC groups of giant rats, wild dogs, or wolves legion sized and smaller. Means I don't have to scout any such group since I'm getting that information from my foreign offices. Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry said a man's got to know his limitations. It's true here as well. Get to know what your armies can handle with the smallest losses. Lossses are relative to the units you use. Yes, t2 cav will generally have fewer losses. That's because they generally have the highest attack value. They are also the slowest and most expensive to produce. Meaning there may be other choices just as effective as t2 cav even if they take more losses when time and cost to replace losses is taken into account.

One day I awoke from unsettling dreams to find myself transformed into a medium-sized Illyriad player

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